The air-raid shelter

Traffic drummed above his head. Smoke rose from a cigarette butt tossed into the grass a few feet from his face. Maitland watched the smoke entwine itself through the tall blades, which leaned towards him, swaying in the late afternoon sunlight as if urging him to his feet. He sat up, trying to clear his mind. The fever had soaked his body, burning the raw skin beneath his beard.

On all sides of the island the traffic moved along the motorways. Steadying himself, Maitland fixed his eyes on the distant cars. He climbed to his feet, hanging himself from the crutch like a carcass on a butcher's hook. High above him, the illuminated surface of the route indicator shone like a burning sword in the dark sky.

Maitland found a last rubber marker in his jacket pocket. On the drying concrete he scrawled: CATHERINE HELP TOO FAST The letters wound up and down the slope. Maitland concentrated on the spelling, but ten minutes later, when he returned after an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Jaguar, they had been rubbed out as if by some dissatisfied examiner.

MOTHER DONT HURT POLICE

He waited in the long grass beside the embankment, but his eyes closed. When he opened them, the message had vanished.

He gave up, unable to decipher his own writing. The grass swayed reassuringly, beckoning this fever-racked scarecrow into its interior. The blades swirled around him, opening a dozen pathways, each of which would carry him to some paradisial arbour. Knowing that unless he reached the shelter of the Jaguar he would not survive the night, Maitland set his course for the breaker's yard, but after a few minutes he followed the grass passively as it wove its spiral patterns around him.

To his surprise, it carried him up a slope of steeper and more difficult ground, over the roof of the largest of the air-raid shelters. Maitland laboured along, listening to the grass seethe around him. A stony ridge marked the west wall of the shelter. Maitland paused there. The curving roof fell away on either side, disappearing into the dense undergrowth that sprang from the floor of the pit.

The grass was silent now, as if waiting for Maitland to make some significant move. Wondering why he had climbed on to the shelter, Maitland caught sight of the overturned taxi in the breaker's yard. He turned with his last strength to reach the Jaguar. Before he could catch himself he slipped on the rain-damp roof. He fell heavily, and slid down the rounded slope into the grass and nettles, plunging through them like a diver vanishing into the deeps of an underground cavern.

Submerged in this green bower, Maitland lay for some time in a hammock of crushed nettles. The dense grass and the foliage of a stunted elder sealed off all but a faint glow of the late afternoon sunlight, and he could almost believe that he was lying at the bottom of a calm and peaceful sea, through which a few bars of faint light penetrated the pelagic quiet. This silence and the reassuring organic smell of decaying vegetation soothed his fever.

A small, sharp-footed creature moved across his left leg, its claws clutching for purchase in the worn fabric of his trousers. It darted in brief scurries, reaching up his thigh to his groin. Opening his eyes, Maitland peered through the dim light, recognizing the long muzzle and nervous eyes of a brown rat drawn to him by the scent of the blood leaking from his hip. An open wound disfigured the creature's head, exposing the skull, as if it had recently torn itself from a trap.

'Get out – aah!' Maitland leapt forward, seizing the metal crutch in the elder branches above his head. He thrashed wildly at the foliage, beating back the walls of his green cell.

The rat had gone. Maitland forced his left leg through the branches to the ground below and stepped out into the fading evening light. He was standing in a sunken passage that ran along the western wall of the shelter. Here the vegetation had been cut back, forming a rough slope that ran down the bank to the doorway of the shelter.

'Tools…!'

Fumbling excitedly with the crutch, Maitland lurched down the passage, his fever and injured leg forgotten. When he reached the door he wiped away the sweat that soaked his face and forehead. A chromium padlock and chain locked the door. Maitland forced the crutch inside the chain and jerked it from its mountings.

Kicking back the door, Maitland hobbled forward into the shelter. A sweet but not unpleasant smell greeted him, as if he were stepping into the lair of some large and docile creature. In the fading light he could see that the shelter was an abandoned beggar's hovel. A line of faded quilts hung from the ceiling and covered the walls and floor. A pile of blankets formed a small bed, and the sole pieces of furniture were a wooden chair and table. From the back of the chair hung a ragged leotard, the faded costume of some pre-war circus acrobat.

Maitland leaned against the curving wall, deciding that he would pass the night in this deserted lair. On the wooden table a number of metal objects were arranged in a circle like ornaments on an altar. All had been taken from motor-car bodies – a wing mirror, strips of chromium window trim, pieces of broken headlamp.

'Jaguar…?' Maitland recognized the manufacturer's medallion, of the same type as that on his own car.

As he picked up the medallion to examine it he was unaware of the broad, thick chested figure who was watching him from the doorway, head lowered like a bull's between swaying shoulders.

Before Maitland could raise the medallion to the light a heavy fist knocked it from his hands. The crutch was snatched away and flung into the open air. Powerful hands seized him by the arms and hurled him backwards through the door. During the next seconds, as he was flung to the ground, Maitland was only aware of the panting, bull-like figure dragging him up the slope into the last light of the day. The headlamps of the distant traffic moved with an almost dream-like calm as the man's face gasped into his own, gusting out a hot breath of rancid wine. Slapping Maitland with his fists, his attacker rolled him backwards and forwards across the damp ground, grunting to himself as if trying to discover some secret hidden on Maitland's injured body.

As he lost consciousness Maitland caught a last glimpse of the passing traffic on the motorway. Between his attacker's swinging arms he saw a red-haired young woman in a camouflage-patterned combat jacket running towards them with the metal crutch lifted in her strong hands.

Rescue

'Rest – try not to move. We've sent for help.'

The young woman's quiet voice soothed Maitland. Her hands bathed his face with a tampon of cotton wool. He lay back as the hot water stung his bruised skin, aware of the fever burning through his bones. As the young woman lifted his head the water trickled through his beard. He opened his swollen mouth, trying to catch the scalding drops.

I'll give you a drink – you must be thirsty.' She gestured with her elbow at the plastic mug standing on the packing-case beside the bed, but made no effort to pass it to Maitland. Her firm hands moved around his neck and down to his chest. Maitland was no longer wearing the dinner-jacket, and the damp dress-shirt was black with oil.

An unshaded paraffin lamp standing on the floor by the doorway glared into his eyes when he tried to look at the young woman's face. As he stirred fretfully, aware of the pain in his leg, she drew the red blanket around his shoulders.

'Relax, Mr Maitland. We've called for help. Catherine -is that your wife's name?'

Maitland nodded weakly. He felt numbed by his relief at being rescued. When she placed her left arm under his head and lifted the mug to his mouth he could smell her warm, strong body, a medley of scents and odours that made his mind reel.

He was lying in a small room, little more than ten feet by ten and almost filled by the metal double bed and mattress on which he was lying. A blocked-off ventilation shaft rose from the centre of the ceiling, but the room was windowless. Beyond the open doorway a flight of semi-circular steps led to the floor above. A faded cinema poster hung from the wall at the foot of the bed, advertising a Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire musical. On either side were several more up-to-date prints taken from underground magazines – a psychedelic poster in the Beardsley manner, a grainy close-up of the dead Che Guevara, a Black Power manifesto, and Charles Manson at his trial, psychotic eyes staring out beneath a bald skull. Apart from the packing case beside the bed the only piece of furniture in the room was a card-table stacked with cosmetic jars and scent bottles, mascara sticks and scruffed-up tissues. An expensive leather suitcase was propped against the wall. A skirt and sweater, and various pieces of underwear, were strung on hangers from the lid.

Maitland gathered himself together. The fever had begun to subside. He remembered the violent attack in the air-raid shelter, and being dragged into the open evening air, but the pain of these blows had been dissolved by the young woman's first words. In the context of his ordeal on the island even this shabby room – in a decaying neighbourhood somewhere near the motorway, he assumed – took on all the style and comfort of a riverside suite at the Savoy. As the young woman sat down on the bed he took her hand, trying to express his gratitude to her.

'Are we…' he began through his bruised mouth. 'Are we near the island?' He added, realizing that she might not be aware of this, 'I crashed my car… Jaguar… I went off the motorway.'

The young woman chewed pensively on a stick of gum, watching Maitland with her sharp eyes.

'Yes, we know. You're lucky that you're still alive.' She placed her strong hand on his forehead, feeling his temperature. 'Were you ill before the crash? You've got quite a fever, you know.'

Maitland shook his head, glad to feel the pressure of her cool palm. 'No -it started later. Yesterday, I think. My leg… it's broken.'

'Good. I thought so. Poor man, I'll give you something to eat.'

As Maitland waited, she reached into her handbag and took out a bar of milk chocolate. She peeled back the silver foil, broke off several of the squares and placed the first one between Maitland's lips.

While the warm chocolate dissolved in his mouth, Maitland was able to see the young woman's face for the first time. She stood up and peered at herself in the travelling mirror hanging from the wall. Bar of chocolate in one hand, she paced up and down the narrow floor. Lit by the paraffin lamp behind her, her red hair glowed like a wild sun in the shabby room, shafts of light cutting through the home-set waves that rose above her high forehead. She was about twenty, with an angular, sharp-witted face and strong jaw. She was good-looking in an almost wilfully tatty way. Her manner towards Maitland, as she fed the soft chocolate to him, each square fingerprinted by her thumb, was brusque and deferential at the same time. Possibly she resented having to look after this well-to-do man who had been brought to her meagre room, realizing that he would soon leave for surroundings that were very much more comfortable. Yet something about her tone, the confident intonations of her voice, suggested to Maitland that she had come from a rather different background. With her faded jeans and combat jacket, surrounded by the Manson and Black Power posters, she looked like the prototypal drop-out, but this impression in turn was belied by the mass of cheap cosmetics, the tarty hair-do and garish clothes hanging from the suitcase lid, the make-believe equipment of a street walker.

Revived by the water and chocolate, Maitland massaged his mouth with one hand. At any moment the ambulance attendants would arrive, he would be carried away to a hospital bed in Hammersmith.

'You called the ambulance? They'll be coming soon. I'd like to thank you…?'

'Jane -Jane Sheppard. I haven't done very much.'

'I've almost forgotten how to eat. There's another number I want you to ring. Dr Helen Fairfax – do you mind?'

'No – but I'm not on the phone. Try to relax. You're absolutely exhausted.'

She sat on the bed, exploring his right hip with her firm fingers. She grimaced as she peered at the inflamed wound exposed through the rent in his trousers. 'This looks nasty. I'll try to clean it for you.'

Her hands moved around his hips and groin as she tried to loosen his trousers. The chocolate melting in Maitland's stomach made him feel light-headed. 'It's all right. They'll deal with it at the hospital.'

He began to tell the young woman about his crash, eager to fix his nightmare ordeal in someone else's mind before it vanished.

I was trapped there for three days – it's hard to believe now. My car went over the edge, I don't think I was hurt at first. But I couldn't get off. Nobody stopped! It's amazing – I was starving to death on this traffic island. Unless you'd come I would have died there…'

Maitland broke off. Jane Sheppard was sitting with her back to him, her hip pressing against his right elbow. Her hands worked away expertly at his trousers. She had extended the slit to the waistband, but the rubberized fabric was too strong for the pair of nail-scissors in her hand. Lifting his right buttock, she began to cut at the lining of his hip pocket.

Maitland watched her remove his car keys from the pocket. She looked hard at them, turning over each of the three keys, and caught his eye. With a small laugh she put them on the packing case.

'You were uncomfortable…' As if to make the explanation convincing, she slid her hand on to his buttock and massaged the bruised skin for a few seconds.

'So no one stopped? I suppose you were surprised. These days we don't notice other people's selfishness until we're on the receiving end ourselves.'

Maitland turned his head, his eyes meeting her level gaze. He stopped himself from picking up the keys. His sense of relief and exhilaration had begun to fade, and he looked around the room, establishing its reality in his mind. Part of himself was still lying out in the rain, listening to the invisible, endlessly drumming traffic. For a moment he was frightened that the room and its young tenant might be part of some terminal delusion.

'It's kind of you to look after me. You have called the ambulance?'

'I've arranged for help, yes. A friend of mine has gone. You'll be all right.'

'Where are we exactly – are we near the island?'

'The "island" – is that what you call it?'

'The traffic island. The patch of waste ground below the motorway. Are we near there?'

'We're near the motorway, yes. You're quite safe, Mr Maitland.'

Maitland listened to the distant murmur of the traffic. He noticed that his wrist-watch had gone, but he guessed it to be somewhere near midnight – hard experience told him that the last westbound traffic was leaving central London.

'My watch must have fallen off. How do you know my name?'

'We found some papers, in a briefcase near the car. Anyway, you talk to yourself all the time.' She paused, eyeing him critically. 'You're tremendously angry with yourself about something, aren't you?'

Maitland ignored this. 'You've seen the car? The silver Jaguar?'

'No – I mean, yes, I did. You confuse me when you talk about the island all the time.' Half-resentfully, as if reminding Maitland of his debt to her, she said, 'I brought you here. You're damned heavy, you know, even for a big man.'

'Where are we – the traffic…' Alarmed, Maitland tried to sit up. The young woman stood at the foot of the bed, her red hair inflamed by the paraffin lamp. She stared at Maitland like a down-at-heel witch who by some confused alchemy had conjured an over-large victim into her lair and was unsure how best to exploit the possibilities of the cadaver.

Unsettled by her calm gaze, Maitland glanced around the room. In one corner, supporting a metal basin filled with wet underwear, were three circular cans, each the size of a film reel.

Projecting like horns from the wall behind the girl's head were the brackets of some kind of winding device. Maitland looked up at the ventilator shaft, and at the Astaire and Rogers publicity poster.

Jane Sheppard spoke quietly. 'Go on. What is it? You're obviously straining to realize something.'

'The cinema…' Maitland pointed to the ceiling. 'Of course, the basement of the ruined cinema.' He lowered his head wearily on to the stale pillow. 'My God, I'm still on the island…'

'Stop talking about the island! You can leave any time you want, I'm not keeping you here. It may not be good enough for you, but I've done what I can. If it hadn't been for me you wouldn't be around any more to complain!'

Maitland brought a hand to his face, feeling the sweat pour from his skin. 'Oh my God… Look – I need a doctor.'

We'll call a doctor. You must rest now. You've been over-exciting yourself for days, deliberately, I think.'

'Jane, I'll give you some money. Help me up on to the road and stop a car. How much money do you want?'

Jane stopped pacing up and down the room. She looked back cannily at Maitland. 'Have you got any money?'

Maitland nodded wearily. Communicating the simplest information seemed to tax this intelligent but devious woman. Clearly she suspected everything around her.

'Yes – I'm well off… a senior partner in a firm of architects. You'll be paid all you want, without any questions. Now, have you sent for help?'

Jane ignored this. 'Have you any money here – say five pounds?'

'In my wallet – it's in my car, in the trunk. I've got about thirty pounds. I'll give you ten.*

'In the trunk…' Jane pondered this, and with a deft movement of her hand picked up the keys. 'I'd better look after these.'

Too tired to move, Maitland stared at the Charles Manson poster. Again he found himself losing the will to survive. He needed to sleep on the warm bed with its smell of cheap scent, in this windowless room deep in the ground. Far above, he heard the grass seething in the night wind.

Heavy boots clattered down the staircase, barely waking him. Jane stepped forward aggressively. Deferring to her, the visitor stood outside the door, a scarred hand shielding his small eyes from the paraffin lamp. As he panted from the exertion of moving his burly body down the steps, Maitland recognized the harsh, phlegmy breathing of the man who had attacked him.

The man was about fifty years old, plainly a mental defective of some kind, his low forehead blunted by a lifetime of uncertainty. His puckered face had the expression of a puzzled child, as if whatever limited intelligence he had been born with had never developed beyond his adolescence. All the stresses of a hard life had combined to produce this aged defective, knocked about by a race of unkind and indifferent adults but still clinging to his innocent faith in a simple world.

Ridges of silver scar tissue marked his cheeks and eye-brows, almost joining across the depressed bridge of his nose, a blob of amorphous cartilage that needed endless attention. He wiped it with his strong hand, examining the phlegm in the paraffin light. Though clumsy, his body still had a certain power and athletic poise. As he swayed from side to side on his small feet Maitland saw that he moved with the marred grace of an acrobat or punch-drunk sparring partner who had gone down the hard way. He continually touched his face, like a boxer flicking away the sting of a sharp blow.

'Well, Proctor, did you find them?' Jane asked.

The man shook his head. He bounced from one foot to the next like a child too busy to visit the lavatory.

'Locked,' he announced in a gruff voice. 'Too strong for Proctor.'

Tm surprised – I thought you could break anything. We'll look again tomorrow, in the daylight.'

'Yes – Proctor rind them tomorrow.' He peered over her shoulder at Maitland, and she stepped back reluctantly.

'Proctor, he's nearly asleep. Don't wake him, or we'll have a corpse on our hands'

'No, Miss Jane.'

Proctor stepped forward with exaggerated caution. Maitland turned his head, realizing that the man was wearing his dinner-jacket. The silk lapels gleamed as they were bunched outwards by the tight fit.

Jane had also noticed the garment.

'What the hell are you wearing that for?' she asked sharply. 'Are you going to a party, or just dressing for dinner?'

Proctor giggled at this. He looked down at himself, not without dignity. 'To a party. Yes… Proctor and Miss Jane!'

'God Almighty… Well, take it off.'

Proctor gazed incredulously at her, his broken face in an expression of pleading and resentment. He clung to the points of the lapels, as if frightened that they would fly away.

'Proctor! Do you want to be seen straight away? They'll spot you a mile off in that fancy dress I'

Proctor hovered in the doorway, accepting the logic of this but reluctant to part with the jacket.

'Night only,' he temporized. 'At night no one will see Proctor's jacket.'

'All right – at night only. Don't let it go to your head, though.' She pointed to Maitland, who lay half-asleep on the damp pillow. 'I'm going out, so you'll have to keep an eye on him. Just leave him alone. Don't start fiddling around with him, or hitting him again. And I don't want you in this room – sit at the top of the steps.'

Proctor nodded obediently. Like an eager conspirator, he sidled backwards through the door and climbed the staircase. Woken by the clatter on the wooden steps, Maitland recognized the industrial boots whose prints he had seen on the embankment. He tried to rouse himself, frightened of being left alone with this punch-drunk resident of the island. He assumed now that the tramp had scaled the muddy slope and replaced the trestles, hiding all traces of his accident.

As he muttered to the young woman she sat down on the bed beside him. A sweet, euphoric smoke filled the room, hanging in long decks around her face. She cradled Maitland's head with unexpected gentleness.

For five minutes she comforted Maitland, rocking his head and murmuring to him reassuringly.

'You'll be all right, love. Try to sleep, you'll feel better when you wake. I'll look after you, dear. You're sleepy, aren't you, my baby? Poor bundle, you need so much sleep. Sleepy baby, my rock-a-bye babe…'

When she had gone, Maitland lay half-awake in his fever, conscious of the tramp in his dinner-jacket watching him from the doorway. All night Proctor hovered over him, his heavy fingers roving around Maitland's body, as if searching for some talisman that eluded him. Now and then Maitland would smell the hot breath of rancid wine in his mouth, and wake to see Proctor's broken face staring down at him. In the light of the paraffin lamp his scarred face seemed to be made of polished stone.

A few hours before dawn Jane Sheppard returned. Maitland heard her calling out in the distance as she crossed the island. She dismissed Proctor, who disappeared silently into the seething grass.

There was a clatter of high-heeled shoes down the steps. Maitland watched her passively when she lurched across to the bed. Slightly drunk, she gazed down at Maitland as if not recognizing him.

'God – are you still here? I thought you were going. What a hell of an evening,'

Crooning to herself, she kicked away her stiletto-heeled shoes. Where she had been he could only guess from her costume., a caricature of a small-town forties whore – a divided skirt that revealed her thighs and stocking tops, pointed breasts under a day-glo blouse.

She tottered round to the far side of the bed and undressed, heaving the clothes into the suitcase. When she was naked she slipped under the frayed blanket. She stared up at the Rogers and Astaire poster and took Maitland's band in her own, partly to still him, partly for company. During the remainder of the night and early morning, as he lay beside her, Mainland was aware in his fever of her strong body touching his own.

The acrobat

The next morning Jane Sheppard had gone. When Maitland woke the basement room was silent. A shaft of sunlight down the narrow staircase illuminated the shabby bed on which he lay. The faces of Guevara and Charles Manson hung from the walls, presiding over him like the custodians of a nightmare.

Maitland reached out his hand, feeling the imprint of the young woman's body. Still lying there, he looked around the room, taking in the open suitcase, the gaudy dresses on their hangers, the cosmetics on the card-table. Jane had straightened everything before leaving.

His fever had subsided. Maitland picked up the plastic cup on the packing-case, lifted himself on to one elbow and drank the tepid water. He pulled back the blankets and examined his leg. Some wayward healing process had locked the hip joint into its socket, but the swelling and pain had eased. For the first time he was able to touch the bruised flesh.

Maitland sat quietly on the edge of the bed, staring at the Astaire and Rogers poster. He tried to remember if he had ever seen the film, casting his mind back to his adolescence. For several successive years he had devoured almost the whole of Hollywood 's output, sitting alone in the empty circles of huge suburban Odeons. He massaged his bruised chest, realizing that his body was more and more beginning to resemble that of his younger self – the combination of hunger and fever had made him lose at least ten pounds in weight. His broad chest and heavy legs had shed half their muscle.

Maitland slid the injured leg on to the floor and listened to the traffic sounds from the motorway. The certainty that he would soon be leaving the island revived him. He had now been marooned on this triangle of waste ground for almost four days. He knew that he had begun to forget his wife and son, Helen Fairfax and his partners – together they had moved back into the dimmer light at the rear of his mind, their places taken by the urgencies of food, shelter, his injured leg and, above all, the need to dominate the patch of ground immediately around him. His effective horizon had shrunk to little more than ten feet away. Even though he would escape in under an hour – however reluctantly, the young woman and Proctor would help him up the embankment -the prospect obsessed him like some decade-long quest.

'Damned leg… '

Inside the packing-case were a primus stove and an unwashed saucepan. Maitland scraped the brown crust of dry rice from the pan, hungrily forcing the hard grains into his bruised mouth. A thick beard covered his face -he looked down at the grimy dress-shirt, the blackened trousers slit from the right knee to the waistband. Yet this collection of tatters less and less resembled an eccentric costume.

Leaning against the wall, Maitland swung himself around the room. The Guevara poster tore in his hands and hung swaying from a corner pin. He reached the doorway, turned himself on his good leg and sat on the lid of a fifty-gallon drum that served as a water butt.

A dozen steps led up to the bright sunlight. From the steep angle of the sun Maitland guessed that it was about eleven thirty. The quiet Sunday-morning traffic moved along the motorway – within half an hour or so some good-humoured family out for a day's drive would be startled by a haggard man in ragged evening dress staggering across the road in front of them. The longest hangover in the world.

Maitland moved up the steps towards the sunlight. When he reached the top he lifted his head cautiously, peering through the grass and nettles that surrounded the stairwell.

He was about to step on to the island when he heard a familiar phlegmy breathing. Maitland crouched down, and eased himself across the ground to the derelict pay-box. Lying on his side, he reached out and parted a bank of nettles with his arms.

Twenty feet away, in a small hollow surrounded by the nettles and high grass, Proctor was performing a set of gymnastic exercises. Blowing hard through his mouth, he stood with his bare feet together, strong shoulders braced as he raised his arms in front of himself. A skipping rope and the steel-capped boots were parked on the well-worn ground of this private recreation yard. He was dressed in the ragged remains of the circus leotard which Maitland had seen hanging from a chair in the air-raid shelter. The silver strips showed off his powerful shoulders, and revealed the livid scar that ran like a lightning bolt from the back of his right ear down his neck to his shoulder, the residue of some appalling act of violence.

After preparing himself, an elaborate ritual of puffing and panting like the start-up of an old gas engine, Proctor took a short step forward and leapt into a somersault.

His powerful body whirled in the air. He struck the ground heavily, barely holding his balance, legs bent and arms wavering at his sides. Delighted by this triumph, he stamped happily in his bare feet.

Maitland waited as Proctor prepared for his next feat. From the careful build-up, the repeated pacing about and measuring of himself against the air, it was clear that this next acrobatic turn represented his real test. Proctor concentrated all his energies. He marked out the ground, kicking away the loose stones like a large animal searching for the kindest terrain. When he finally leaped again into the air, attempting a backward somersault, Maitland already knew that he would fail. He lowered his head as the tramp sprawled across the ground, scattering his boots.

Stunned, Proctor lay on his back. He picked himself up, looking dejectedly at his clumsy body. He made a half-hearted attempt to prepare himself for a second attempt, but gave up and brushed the dust from his grazed arms. He had cut his right wrist. He sucked at the wound, and tried a hand-stand, following it with a crude knee fall. His co-ordination was clearly at fault, and the forward somersault had come off by chance alone. Even skipping was too much for him. Within seconds the rope was tangled around his neck.

Nevertheless, as Maitland realized, the tramp was not dismayed. He licked the cut on his wrist and panted happily to himself, more than satisfied with his progress. Embarrassed by the display, Maitland edged away.

Hearing Maitland move behind the pay-box, Proctor turned suspiciously. Before Maitland could reach the staircase he had disappeared from sight, vanishing like a startled animal into the deep grass.

There was a faint movement in the nettle bank behind Maitland. He waited, certain that Proctor was watching him and that if he stepped out the tramp would seize him and hurl him back down the steps. Maitland listened to the traffic, thinking of the tramp's unconcealed strain of violence, a long-borne hostility to the intelligent world on which he would happily revenge himself.

Maitland eased himself down the steps. From the bottom of the stairwell he looked up at the sky and the waving grass. He stepped back into the room and swung himself around the walls. As his eyes cleared in the dim light he gazed round at the underground posters, the dingy bed and leather suitcase filled with cheap clothes. Who were these two tenants of the island? What uneasy alliance existed between the old circus hand and this sharp-witted young woman? She appeared to be a classic drop-out, exiting from a well-to-do family with her head full of half-baked ideals, on the run from the police for a drug or probation offence.

Maitland heard her voice call out across the deep grass. Proctor answered in his gruff simpleton's tones. Maitland moved back to the bed and lay down, covering himself with the blanket as Jane came down the steps into the room.

In one hand was a supermarket bag filled with groceries. She was wearing her jeans and combat jacket. For once, Maitland reflected as he noticed the mud on her shoes, the camouflage was not merely a youthful fad. Presumably she knew some private route up the embankment and across the feeder road.

She peered at Maitland, her sharp eyes taking in everything in a one-second glance. Her red hair was brushed back tightly against her head like a hard-working mill-girl's, exposing her high, bony forehead.

'How are you? Not too strong, I imagine. Anyway, you slept well.'

Maitland gestured weakly with one hand. Something warned him to disguise his recovery. 'I feel a little better.'

'I see you've been wandering around in here,' she remarked without any criticism. She straightened the Guevara poster, re-pinning the torn corner. 'You can't be too bad. There's nothing to find here, by the way.'

She put her strong hand to Maitland's forehead and held it there, then briskly pulled out the primus stove and carried it into the sunlight at the bottom of the stairwell.

'Your fever's gone. We were worried about you last night. You're the sort of man who has to test himself all the time. Do you think you crashed on to this traffic island deliberately?' When Maitland regarded her patiently she went on, 'I'm not joking – believe me, self-destruction is something I know all about. My mother pumped herself so full of barbiturates before she died that she turned blue.'

She lit the primus and set three eggs boiling in the pan. 'You must be hungry – I bought some things for you at the supermarket.'

Maitland sat up. 'What day is it?'

'Sunday – the Indian places around here are open every day. They exploit themselves and their staffs more than the white owners do. But that's something you know all about.'

'What's that?'

'Exploitation. You're a rich businessman, aren't you? That's what you claimed to be last night.'

'Jane, you've being naive – I'm not rich and I'm not a businessman. I'm an architect.' Maitland paused, well aware of the way in which she was reducing their relationship to the level of this aimless domestic banter. Yet there was something not entirely calculated about this.

'Did you call for help?' he asked firmly.

Jane ignored the question, setting out the modest meal. The brightly coloured paper cups and plates, and the paper table cloth she spread carefully across the packing case, made it resemble a miniature children's tea party.

'I… didn't have time. I thought you needed some food first.'

'As a matter of fact, I'm starving.' Maitland unwrapped the packet of rusks she handed to him. 'But I've got to get to a hospital. My leg needs looking at. There's the office, and my wife – they must wonder where I am.'

'But they think you're away on a business trip,' Jane retorted quickly. 'They probably aren't missing you at all.'

Maitland let this pass. 'You told me you'd called the police last night.'

Jane laughed at Maitland as he hunched in his ragged clothes on the edge of the bed, his blackened hands tearing apart the packet of rusks. 'Not the police – we're not very fond of them here. Proctor isn't, anyway – he has rather unhappy memories of the police. They've always kicked him around. Do you know that a sergeant from Notting Hill Station urinated on him? You don't forget that kind of thing.'

She waited for a reply. The sulphurous smell of the cracked eggs intoxicated Maitland. She steered a steaming egg on to his paper plate, leaning across him long enough for him to register the weight and body of her left breast. 'Look, you weren't well last night. You couldn't have been moved. That terrible leg, the fever, you were completely exhausted, raving away about your wife. Can you imagine us stumbling about in the dark, trying to carry you up that slope? I just wanted to keep you alive.'

Maitland broke the boiled egg. The hot shell stung the oil-filled cuts in his fingers. The young woman squatted on the floor at his feet, shaking out her red hair. The contrived way in which she used her body confused him.

'You'll help me afterwards to get away from here,' he told her. 'I understand your not wanting the police involved. If Proctor-'

'Exactly. He's terrified of the police, he'll do anything to avoid bringing them here. It's not that he's ever done anything, but this place is all he's got. When they built the motorway they sealed him in – he never leaves here, you know. It's pretty remarkable how he's survived.'

Maitland crammed the dripping fragments of the egg into his mouth. 'He nearly killed me,' he commented, licking his fingers.

'He thought you were trying to take over his den. It was lucky I came along. He's very strong. When he was sixteen or seventeen he used to be a trapeze artist with some fly-by-night circus. That was before they had any safety legislation. He fell off the high wire and damaged his brain. They just threw him out. Mental defectives and subnormals are treated appallingly – unless they're prepared to go into institutions they have absolutely no protection.'

Maitland nodded, concentrating on the food. 'How long have you been in this old cinema?'

'I don't really live here,' she answered with a flourish. 'I'm staying with some… friends, near the Harrow Road. I used to have my own study as a child, I don't like too many people around me-you probably under-stand.'

'Jane-' Maitland cleared his throat. Eating the hard rusks and scalding egg had opened a dozen sore places in his mouth. His gums and lips, the soft palate, stung from the unaccustomed bite. He looked down unsteadily at the young woman, realizing the extent of his dependence on her. Seventy yards away the traffic moved along the motorway, carrying people to their family lunches. Sitting over a primus stove with her in this shabby room for some reason reminded him of the first months of his marriage to Catherine, and their formal meals. Although Catherine had furnished the apartment herself, virtually without consulting Maitland, he had felt the same dependence on her, the same satisfaction at being surrounded by strange furniture. Even their present house had been designed to avoid the hazards of over-familiarity.

He realized that Jane had spoken the truth about saving his life, and felt a sudden debt to her. He was puzzled by her mixture of warmth and aggression, her swerves from blunt speaking to outright deviousness. More and more, he found himself looking at her body, and was irritated by his own sexual response to the offhand way in which she exploited herself.

'Jane, I want you to call Proctor now. You and he can carry me up the embankment and leave me there. I'll be able to stop a driver.'

'Of course.' She looked frankly into his eyes, giving him a small smile. A hand stroked the hair behind her neck. 'Proctor won't help you, but I'll try – you're awfully heavy, even if you have been starving. Too many expense-account lunches, terrible tax evasion goes on. Still, you're supposed to get some kind of emotional security from over-eating…'

'Jane!' Exasperated, Maitland drummed with his blackened fist on the packing case, scattering the paper plates on to the floor. I'm not going to call the police. I won't report either you or Proctor. I'm grateful to you -if you hadn't found me I would probably have died here. No one will find out.'

Jane shrugged, already losing interest in what Maitland was saying. 'People _will__ come…'

'They won't! The breakdown men who tow my car away won't give a damn about anything here. The last three days have proved that to me a hundred times over.'

'Is your car worth a lot of money?'

'No -it's a write-off. I set fire to it.'

'I know. We watched that. Why not leave it here?'

'The insurance people will want to see it.' Maitland looked at her sharply. 'You _saw__ the fire? Good God, why didn't you help me then?'

'We didn't know who you were. How much did the car cost?'

Maitland gazed into her open and childlike face, with its expression of naive corruption.

'Is that it? Is that why you're in no hurry to see me go?' He put a hand reassuringly on her shoulder, holding it there when she tried to push it away. 'Jane, listen to me. If you want money I'll give it to you. Now, how much do you want?'

Her question was as matter-of-fact as a bored cashier's. 'Have you got any money?'

'Yes, I have – in the bank. There's my wallet in the car, with about thirty pounds in it. You've got the keys, get there before Proctor does. You look fast enough on your feet.'

Ignoring his hostility, she reached into her handbag. After a pause she took out the oil-stained wallet. She tossed it on to the bed beside Maitland.

It's all there – count it. Go on! _Count__ it!'

Maitland opened the wallet and glanced at the bundle of damp notes. Calming himself, he started again.

'Jane, I can help you. What do you want?'

'Nothing from you.' She had found a piece of gum and was chewing on it aggressively. 'You're the one who needs help. You were screwed up by being on your own too much. Let's face it, you're not really unhappy with your wife. You like that cool scene.'

Maitland waited for her to finish. 'All right, maybe I do. Then help me get away from here.'

She stood in front of him, blocking his path to the door, eyes furious.

'You're making these assumptions all the time! No one owes you anything, so stop all this want, want, want! You crashed your car because you drove too fast, now you're complaining about it like a child. We only found you last night…'

Maitland avoided her fierce gaze, and pulled himself along the wall to the doorway. This deranged young woman needed someone to be angry with – the old tramp was too dim, but he himself, starving and half-crippled by a broken leg, made the perfect target. The first show of gratitude was enough to set her going…

As he passed her she stepped forward and took his arm. She slipped it around her small shoulders. Like a dance-hall instructress leading a helpless novice, she steered him towards the stairs.

Maitland stepped into the bright sunlight. The long grass seethed around his legs, greeting him like an affectionate dog. Fed by the spring rain, the grass was over four feet deep, reaching to Maitland's chest. He leaned unsteadily against the young woman. The high causeway of the overpass spanned the air a hundred yards to the east, arid he could see the concrete caisson on which he had scrawled his messages. The island seemed larger and more contoured, a labyrinth of dips and hollows. The vegetation was wild and lush, as if the island was moving back in time to an earlier and more violent period.

'The messages I wrote – did you wipe them off?'

'Proctor did. He never learned to read and write. He hates words of any kind.'

'And the wooden trestles?' Maitland felt no resentment towards either Proctor or the young woman.

'He straightened them – right after the crash, while you were still stunned in the car.'

She supported him, standing against his shoulder, one hand pressed against his stomach. The scent of her warm body contrasted with the smell of the grass and the automobile exhaust gases. Maitland sat down on a truck tyre lying on the ground. He gazed at the high wall of the motorway embankment. The newly seeded grass was growing more densely on the surface. Soon it would hide all traces of his accident, the deep ruts left by the tyres of his car, the confused marks of his first struggles to climb the embankment. Maitland felt a brief moment of regret that he was leaving the island. He would have liked to preserve it for ever, so that he could bring Catherine and his friends to see this place of ordeal.

'Jane…'

The young woman had gone. Twenty yards away, her strong head and shoulders moved above the grass as she strode towards the air raid shelters.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26